Elm Park Development

I doubt it Phil, if you looked around the windows the works would indicate that they will be gutted as opposed to leveled.

From what I have seen of the development in the papers it looks good both in terms of density and design, another Dart Station to service it would be most welcome

From the Tara Towers it would be, but the entrance is up another couple of minutes up plus when you look at the layout of the development most homes are at the back of the development and will be the guts of 5 mins from the entrance.

But you are probably right, it is a little close for another station, and in terms of planning this type of development is light years ahead of what has gone before. I guess what I meant to say was that a similar development 50 yards from a DART station would be the way to go. I also walk to work when possible which is about 100% of the time these days 😉

Originally posted by Diaspora
From what I have seen of the development in the papers it looks good both in terms of density and design, another Dart Station to service it would be most welcome

You mean reopen the old Merrion station, closed in 1934. It is the red brick bulidling on the landward side of the line just south of Merrion gates.

Phil,
I was talking in very broad terms about where I perceive development should be located and I used the Phase beside a dart station, A being the operative.

Certainly I would be entirely against the elemination of Booterstown Marsh on any grounds, great credit is due to Maurice Bryant of An Taisce who has managed the reserve almost single handedly for twenty years with the generous support of conservation volunteers Ireland. 🙂

“Bucholz McEvoy Architects’ Elm Park is a stunning £300m mixed-use, sustainable extension to Dublin, made all the more attractive by the charmless dross that surrounds it. The scrappy outskirts of Dublin are the last place you would expect one of the most dynamic, high-density, low-energy developments in Europe. As you approach its southern boundary, the city disintegrates into a messy scatter of dismal concrete hotels, utilitarian hospital slabs and a dumpy neo-Norman church herding a flock of sheltered housing blocks. Then, just beyond this charmless sprawl, your eye is caught by a phalanx of six long narrow eight-storey finger blocks, all wearing beautifully tailored curtain walls, all neatly lined up in parallel and all capped by uncluttered flat roofs of the same height.”

Easy knowing this is an English review – poor old Martin Spring clearly doesn’t like the outskirts of Dublin. He seems amazed that its one of “the most dynamic developments in Europs”. He really should visit more often.

Laugh? I nearly…

@stuarthart wrote:

“…herding a flock of sheltered housing blocks.”

Aside from the nonsense highlighted by alonso, this seemed worthy of note- all those poor Victorian terraces and handsome mid-20th century suburbs huddling in the lee of the great white hope of D4 like peasants at a Medieval cathedral. That’s poetry, that is.

This article really is the opposite end of the spectrum from that rose-tinted urban guff on the DDDA that I posted the other day.

Sandymount?

*reaches for map*

Nice to have your authoritative contribution as always, Joan.

@alonso wrote:

No landmarks, no variety, just monoaltitudinal (hey a new word – you saw it here first – hands off Frank McD) architectural vomit. The environmental elements of this development are most most welcome. In fact it’s a massive step forward by all (gushing, seemingly bought) accounts but the aesthetics are truly muck.

Absolute rubbish! Whatever your personal taste may be, the aesthetic of the project is modern, simple and sharp. I fail to see how it can be offensive and it’s certainly not ugly (vomit?!)

It is architecture responding sensibly to a brief. It’s appearance is driven by it’s programme, economic and environmental ambition and sense. Aspect, Block height, and arrangement on the site is strictly arranged to maximise the quality of the interior spaces, environmental performance, and efficient use of (what is admittedly) a green field site, although I still regard it as an existing “urban” site
Perhaps you would like to expand upon the “variety” you would like to see. I don’t understand why every project needs to be a “landmark” – can it not just be good background architecture? It was built at a lower cost to our environment than the Pattern book architecture being built in places like Tallaght, Dundrum, and Darndale at the moment.

A lot of those schemes try -and fail- to be “different” with ridiculous paneling systems or “crazy” “different” curved walls – if the architects involved in such projects actually spent more time working on the plans and made a genuine attempt to fit these buildings into a coherent urban realm, rather than sticking “interesting” facades onto badly designed blocks, then we would be much better off.

Why not criticise all the bad architecture Alonso, why are you targeting one of the best of such schemes completed in recent years?! Sometimes I fear – and I’m not necessarily implying you are a part of it- that many incumbents upon this site are only interested in “cool”, tall, flashy, neon, curvy architecture

You make some good points on the novelty factor in other new developments, CM00, and on the environmental aspects of this one, but it’s the suburban office park blandness that is the weak point of this development for me, both the building style and the the ‘parkland’ setting as designed. I’d be very cautious about using the word ‘urban’ to describe this development. It’s campus architecture to these eyes.

Can you make a concrete and glass office block environmental by clamping a few lengths of wood onto the facade, or is it more complicated than that?